BC Business
Arkive taps mobile technology to simplify the process of getting digital pictures printed and delivered.
Taking photos is much more convenient than it was 10 years ago: just pull out your phone and capture a new memory in the making. But getting those pictures printed never followed suit, and it remains a cumbersome process unless you have a high-end printer at home.
A Vancouver company plans to change that. With a background in digital branding and design, Burnkit principals Dylan Staniul and Josh Dunford joined forces with Hemlock Printers president and CEO Richard Kouwenhoven to launch Arkive at the start of the year.
The iPhone-exclusive app is simple to navigate: download it, connect it to your gallery, select the photos you want printed, pick a size (there are three options), and check out with your address to have the prints delivered to your door.
“We know mobile technology and the power that has, and how to make those experiences seamless, easy and intuitive,” Staniul tells BCBusiness. “And then partnering with Richard at Hemlock—they know how to create beautiful printed results and have the technology to do that as well. When we married those skills, we were able to create the Arkive app.”
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The concept was inspired by a question: “How could we respond to this explosion of people being able to create their own images on their mobile devices over the past years?” Staniul relates.
Arkive. The app in use
“The result was the idea of Arkive,” he says of the service, which is set to deliver throughout North America. “A very simple app that doesn’t try to do everything but just one simple thing: perform as simply as somebody using Instagram or their photo app on their phone. And then turning those images, the ones that they feel are most special, into beautiful, art-quality prints.”
That’s what sets Arkive apart from a drugstore printing service, Staniul maintains. “Our technology has been calibrated so that it responds beautifully to the images that are captured by an iPhone,” he says. “I think that there is a real value in surrounding yourself and the environment you live in with the things that you love. So we’d like to encourage people to do that by making it very easy for them, and for them to be completely thrilled with the product they receive.”